interview: Marielle Allschwang
Tune into WMSE as local musician and artist Marielle Allschwang visits Ken on The Five & Dime to talk about her Milwaukee release show at the Oriental Theatre on Saturday, 9/21 for the multimedia project, Precession Of A Day: The World Of Mary Nohl. WMSE.org or 91.7 FM to listen…
If you’re from Milwaukee, you may know Mary Nohl’s home/artist built environment as “the Witch’s House.” If you’re an artist in Milwakee, you may know Nohl through the Mary L. Nohl fund: She left 9.6 million dollars to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, which has awarded over 100 art fellows to date. Yet she remains little-understood and outside the canonical fold of art history.
If you’re unfamiliar with the woman/the myth/the legend, you may be delighted to discover this indefatigable, thrifty, and innovative figure who transformed her natural environment on the shore of Lake Michigan into an ever-evolving expression of her imagination, from her basement walls to the edge of her yard. She lived alone but traveled the world. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and owned her own ceramics shop. She never married but hosted several clubs that appear to aim toward sheer fun. She was the subject of much speculation, and vandalism that often verged on violence. She was called a witch. She wasn’t, but she wrote “BOO” in her front step with stones. She kept making art until her death at 86.
Marielle Allschwang & the Visitations have created a song cycle about Mary Nohl (1914-2001), performed alongside video shot in and around Nohl’s artist environment. It was produced by David Ravel and premiered in June 2019 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Three more performances are currently scheduled:
September 19 // UW-Madison PAC, Madison, WI
September 21 // Milwaukee Film @ Oriental Theatre, Milwaukee, WI (Record release show)
Date TBA // Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN
A double LP is set for release September 17. This will be Marielle Allschwang & The Visitations’ second full-length in five months, and features Tom Duffey on drums. The Visitations include Duffey, Adam Krause, Ken Palme, and Nathaniel Heuer. Live and recorded iterations of “Precession of a Day” feature vocal cameos from Erin Wolf (Hello Death, Rose of the West) and Caley Conway (Cairns, Caley Conway, Field Report).